The ‘etcetera’ above is simply to assure myself that I’m not JUST writing about movies. Here’s the non-movie part of this review: The missus is in a foul mood for various reasons (most of them to do with me)… waitaminnit.. am I actually setting an apology up on this blog?

No. I’m not absolutely useless. Yet anyway.

I am continuing my vein of trying to talk about my missus more, and it sorta serves as an addendum to the last post.

When my teachers learnt of my engagement, a very interesting tangent from wanting to meet her was about what a good boy I had been in school (I think it had something to do with her finding out what kind of a terror I was in school). In short, I was apparently the model student in school, which bore repeating more than a few times. Always so well-behaved, never missing a day of classes, so polite. Such a pleasure to have.
Now, why is this relevant?
I’m guessing she’ll figure that out.

:D

Now for the former part of the title.

Post ‘Fargo’ (today) and ‘No Country for Old Men’ (a while ago), I’ve come to realize when the Coen brothers make a non-black-comedy movie, it goes completely over my head. Like, really really over my head. I stand at 6 feet-something; the level of the movie probably starts at roughly 20,000 feet. On the other hand: ‘The Big Lebowski’, ‘Intolerable Cruelty’, ‘Burn After Reading’, ‘Raising Arizona’ (vague memories of the last anyway) – each one amazingly enjoyable, the dialogues immensely quotable, and I’m all ROTFLMAO (now I wish I had the Y! smiley which could actually do that). I have to be more careful about which ones I watch. There are only so many open-ended, vaguely drifting movies that I can watch – all of which exist in the IMDB 250 and for some reason are ALL insanely “critically acclaimed”. What exactly are “critics” seeing in these movies that I can’t even fathom? And I know I enjoy weird critically acclaimed movies to some extent (e.g. Raging Bull, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Citizen Kane, Taxi Driver)

‘Love Aaj Kal’. Ah well. Given that it is the director of ‘Socha Na Tha’ and ‘Jab We Met’.. the movie is not excruciating. Unlike ‘Luck’.. but more on that later. Back to LAK. Which sounds a lot like ‘Luck’. Hm. That movie is getting to me. The #1 moral of LAK is that breaking up with Deepika is the best thing that can happen to you: you get to make out/talk to her more, while at the same time getting it on with a variety of other women. The #1 conclusion of LAK is that Deepika has literally a-two-expression repertoire: smiling and not. The #1 irritation about LAK is Saif’s old-new act of a 40 year old pretending to be a metro-sexually active 30 year old. The #1 highlight of LAK is the last scene, which cut cruelly short while raising the question: why exactly is Rishi Kapoor so morose throughout the damn film? The #1 frustration of LAK is that the entire movie would have been so much better unmade had Saif just asked Rishi to mind his business and stop frustrating him about a plastic-faced bimbette. Who had probably been penciled in for both love stories, until the director came to an important realization. His movie would never be made if he were to commit suicide over the frustration of watching Deepika do nothing and call it acting for the entirety of the whole damn movie, rather than just half of it.

Lets move on to Prabhuji’s latest: ‘Luck’. GB said it all in his review. I must point out that the director had the right idea in ensuring his hero and heroine were right at the point of impact of the explosion during the climax. Might have helped had they both died, and ensured that (1) the director never makes such movies (unlucky and all that), (2) the two never make movies again (being dead and all that). And then of course, the process of elimination is simplistic. Stage 1: 6 desi+9 non-desi, eliminate 6 non-desi. Stage 2: Eliminate 2 non-desi. Stage 3: Eliminate 1 non-desi. Stage 4: Eliminate viewer (who has likely killed himself when the genius strategy of selection of Hindi speakers hits home).

And yes, I’m working on that weekly post. Seriously. Really seriously.